Saturday, July 03, 2010

Blogging from Toronto tonight, back in Michigan tomorrow to enjoy the 4th.

I came across an interesting story on the malicious destruction of property by the rioters at the G20 summit on June 26 in today's copy of The (red) Star, Toronto's main liberal newspaper. In between articles that have much journalistic-hand-wringing at the treatment of the protesters at the hands of the police (They were locked up in crowded conditions and fed cheese sandwiches! - The horror!), we get a look at how a bunch of small businessmen were affected by the rampage.
It's an interesting and disheartening account of how lots of innocent shop owners suffered looting and destruction of their shops at the hands of a bunch of worthless thugs.

At almost the top of the article comes the moronic answer ro this question that at least one of the rioters' gave for their actions in sacking stores, breaking windows, and setting fires -

“This isn’t violence,” one of the black clad mob told the Star during the rampage. “This is vandalism against violent corporations. We did not hurt anybody.”

Ok, someones been taking a few too many post-modern philosophy and poli-sci courses at the University of Toronto now haven't they?
The "non-violent" monochromatically-clad protesters continued their philosophic discourse with a number of shop windows and items on display without getting too much grief from the man:

Salimi was standing by the display cases near the front of his shop when the vandals struck. They hurled a section of movable fencing through the front glass window. “I was standing where you are. I was frozen. Their faces were covered, like Halloween Day. Then we hid behind the counter. We were scared.”

Like Kilislian, he has questions. “Why would they do this? Do they want to kill us? In this country? This kind of stuff?

“You’re standing in your store and someone comes to you like this?” continues Salimi, who has also lived in India and Pakistan. “I’ve never seen that before.”

Salimi checks his phone and sees that he called police at 4:15 p.m. on Saturday. “They said they couldn’t come. They said, ‘Protect yourself.’ ”

Wait a second, this is Toronto Canada, home of the promise that the police will protect you in the well-ordered society of the north promising Peace, Order and Good Government to counter their barbaric neighbor's original offer of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

After all, Canadians lost in the face of the Canadian disarmament campaign their right to the most viable means of defense for these shopkeepers and in return received the assurance that of course they don't need them because they have the police.

Methinks a bunch of Torontonians just experienced firsthand the adage that when seconds count the police are minutes (or in this case days) away.

The police will protect you all right, as long as they're not too busy protecting the more important folks at the party down the road, or overwhelmed with the situation of the day.

A final insult to injury for the shopkeepers:

It will cost up to $2000 to fix the windows. Is insurance likely to cover the costs? “We don’t have a police report.”